2009 Archive

Recently, I learned that this tiny corner shop is called Kong Kee and they even have a website! They specialized in tofu and at their corner store you can always find 2 ladies standing outside the store with loads of tofu for sale. Inside the store you can get cheap eats like noodles and stuff. Besides selling tofu they also sell rice noodles. I usually get a bag of rice noodles that has scallions and dried shrimp for $3. A bag of noodles last me 5 good meals. I like to cut them into smaller pieces and fried them in a pan. Get them nice and crispy and serve them with hoisin sauce or peanut sauce. Cheap and makes a great party snack.

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I just love anything thats Japanese. Anime, crazy tv shows, culture, technology, and of course food. Japanese chicken wings or tebasaki is pretty famous in Nagoya, Japan. My first exposure to these tasty chicken wings was at Furabio. They were sticky, sweet and covered in sesame seeds.

Few years ago, I had lunch with a friend. She brought me to Tebaya, a tiny shop that specializes in tebasaki. They also sell yummie sandwiches. I remember it being quite good so last last Friday I had lunch with my friend, Steph. She works close to Tebaya so that was another reason why I wanted to go there.

I was excited to go there because I wanted to try the cream crab croquette sandwich. When I walked up to the counter I was ready to order that sandwich in a combo that came with 2 wings, a salad and a drink. Sadly the lady told me they don’t make that anymore so I ended up get the same combo but with a fried fish sandwich.

We had to wait a bit for our lunches. The salad was just your typical Japanese salad and it was a bit sad looking. The sandwich looked pretty big but it was mostly bun. The piece of fried fish was a little too thin. But the bread was great. I really love Asian bread, they tend to be on the chewier side. The wings were pretty good as well.

Overall it seemed everything was okay. I remembered loving the place the first time. I’ll probably go back again for their sandwiches, love love the bread.

– Tebaya 144 W. 19th St New York

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Me and Donny in Red Hook. Photo by my Dad. Did Red Hook make the list?

2009 was a good year for Eat to Blog. In February we celeberated the 1st Anniversary of the blog. This was also the year that the blog started affecting my personal life, instead of my personal life affecting the blog (I’ll explain how below). I would also be remiss if I didn’t thank two particular groups of people who helped our blog grow this year. First is FoodBuzz, a network of food blogs that we joined at the end of last year. This year FoodBuzz provided me with some incredible opportunities (again, I’ll go into more detail below). The other group I have to thank is the team at Serious Eats: NY. Through their Smorgasbord feature (and a few other articles) they directed more traffic to our site than any other source (except for Google searches). And best of all, we got to meet a few of the SE:NY team at the Vendy Awards in September.

It was also a disappointing year in some ways. I didn’t really have a great restaurant meal, so I don’t feel comfortable publishing a Top 5 Meals of 2009 the way I did for 2008. Instead, I’ll just do a rundown of my personal favorite posts of 2009.

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With the end of the year fast approaching, we thought we’d take a look back at the most popular posts of the year. Here are our ten most viewed posts of 2009, as measured by Google Analytics. Thanks to all of our readers for making this such a great year for our blog!

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I think Menkui Tei in the East Village deserves more press. They might not have the best ramen in town or have an extensive menu or a drunken happy atmosphere but you know what, does that matter? They do churn out consistently good dishes. I have not had one single bad meal there nor bad experience. A lot of things change in the East Village. Over the 6 years that I’ve been here in NYC I have seen bars come and go, what was once a dominant Japanese dining area is now half Japan town and half Korea town. It’s comforting to know that whenever I go to Menkui Tei, I’ll get a good meal. Though Minca is still my to-go spot for ramen, Menkui Tei is Steph’s, my friend, favorite place for ramen.
My favorite dish to eat from here is the Oyakodon. Chicken and egg cooked in dashi over steamy rice! Add a dash of hot pepper and you’re set. Such a great cold winter night dish.

– Menkui Tei 63 Cooper Sq, New York

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Once a month I would tell Howard that “damit we need to go here and here and here and here before 2009 ends!” And he would say “sure sure sure and when when when?” And I would say “how about this on that day and that on this day?” But in the end we either ended up either doing something else or we get lazy or I get lazy. But damit not this time!! I don’t remember how long it has been since I first wanted to eat at Roberta’s. I only remember Howard liking it and Mr. Paulie Gee is a fan as well.
We had came up with an awesome idea to travel around Brooklyn to try many pizzerias on Labor Day. Our friend, also another pizza fanatic, offered to drive so that we can make it to as many places in one day as possible. We had 5 places on our to-go map but by the end of the day we only made it to 2 plus 1 unplanned spot. The biggest problem we ran into was the West Indies Parade that took place on Labor Day. We were mostly stuck in traffic and trying to figure our way around Brooklyn. The other problem that we ran into, which was more obvious, was that it was a holiday and the restaurants would be closed. The third problem of this whole pizza tour was that it was a pizza tour. How the hell would it be a good idea to eat at 5 different pizza places in 1 day? We had decided to only order 1 pie and each of use will only eat 1 slice. As you read on, you will know that we didn’t follow that rule.Click to continue